Editorial: Uncle Sam’s prying eyes

What was thought to be domestic overreach by the George W. Bush administration in the name of national security now appears to be standard practice under the Obama administration. We shouldn’t be surprised: Neither Bush nor Obama promised to rein in domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency, and Congress ...

Milford Daily News

Writer

Posted Jun. 8, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 8, 2013 at 8:02 AM

Posted Jun. 8, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 8, 2013 at 8:02 AM

» Social News

What was thought to be domestic overreach by the George W. Bush administration in the name of national security now appears to be standard practice under the Obama administration. We shouldn’t be surprised: Neither Bush nor Obama promised to rein in domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency, and Congress dutifully appropriated billions in new funding to grow its capacity to keep an eye on global electronic communications.

On Wednesday, London's Guardian newspaper reported on a secret court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, itself a secret panel, authorizing the National Security Agency to collect the telephone records of Verizon's U.S. customers, potentially 121 million subscribers. Thursday, it reported that the NSA had access to the servers of the country’s major internet service providers.

The Verizon order, permitted through the Patriot Act, covers the phone numbers and locations of both parties on the call, its time and duration, and what are called "unique identifiers." The three-month order has been regularly renewed.

The surveillance began at least seven years ago, according to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, putting its origins in the Bush administration. For a change, it appears that key members of Congress had been briefed on the program - at least none of them appeared surprised. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that the program was necessary for homeland safety and that privacy rights were carefully protected.

The government has collected an immense amount of information, and the temptation to broaden its use may become too great. Why not, some agent might ask, use it to detect crimes like money laundering and financial fraud? Having gone that far, why not use it to track individuals holding suspect political views? That has happened before in our history.

There’s also the question of whether massive data collection makes us more secure. As James Bamford, who has written extensively about the NSA, argues, collecting more random data mostly builds a bigger haystack, which makes finding the terrorist needles even harder.

For the moment, the response of the White House, congressional leaders and NSA spooks is: "Trust us." Frankly, that’s not good enough, if we are to be true to our founders’ vision of a country where the government keeps out of its citizens’ private business.